
Radioactivity levels are soaring in seawater near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan's nuclear safety agency said, two weeks after the nuclear power plant was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami.

Japan estimated the cost of the damage from its devastating earthquake and tsunami could top 300 billion US dollars (close to 6% of GDP). The first official estimate since the March 11 disaster covers damage to roads, homes, factories and infrastructure.

Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) will have to compensate farmers for losses caused by the nuclear radiation leaking from its power plants, Japan has said.

Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami will depress growth briefly before reconstruction kicks off and gives the beleaguered economy a boost, the World Bank said in a report.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has warned that fuel prices could increase and the global aviation industry will face a setback while Japan recovers from the earthquake.

The United Nations nuclear agency, IAEA, says there have been positive developments in Japan's efforts to tackle a nuclear emergency after the 11 February quake.

Engineers at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant have managed to lay a cable to reactor 2, the UN's nuclear watchdog reports. Restoring power should enable engineers to restart the pumps which send coolant over the reactor.

Thousands of albatrosses and other endangered species at a wildlife sanctuary north-west of Hawaii have been killed by the tsunami which devastated Japan, US officials say.

As concerns about a meltdown at the Fukushima plant escalate, Britain’s the Telegraph revealed a series of two-year-old cables the paper obtained from Wikileaks that show unnamed experts telling Japanese officials they needed to update their nuclear safety protocols.

The risk of the contamination of food products from nuclear radiation in Japan is limited to the specific area surrounding the damaged nuclear plant, according to a source from the World Health Organization (WHO).